


Invocation Theory

by persepoline



Series: with swollen dreams and rising sweats [1]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, LET SEIJI SAY FUCK, M/M, natori is a service top change my mind, they're engaged or whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 20:50:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17608742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persepoline/pseuds/persepoline
Summary: Matoba’s boredom was a summoning circle in its own right: something you didn’t want to stumble into unawares, if you knew what was good for you.





	Invocation Theory

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: In case there's any confusion over authorship - initially I posted this fic anonymously, as a little personal experiment to see whether not attaching my name to things I write mitigates the anxiety of posting my writing where strangers on the internet can read it (the anxiety in question is more related to the idea of "being seen" than it is to criticism; I have a thick skin when it comes to feedback, so no worries there). However, the experiment backfired, as this fic contains so many overtly horny-upon-main descriptions of Matoba Seiji that it seems everyone can tell exactly who wrote it (hello!)
> 
> My point being, I've decided to go ahead and just claim the fic. That's not to say I won't explore anonymous posting in the future, but next time I'll probably save it for writing in a larger fandom where my compulsive use of adverbs is less likely to be recognized.
> 
> But one advantage to claiming a fic I originally listed anonymously is that now I can call out some folks: MANY THANKS to everyone in the discord server, for putting up with me and for letting me bounce some decidedly dumb ideas around. Without y'all, I definitely would not have gathered the courage to post smut. And of course, if someone else's headcanons ended up in here accidentally, please know it wasn't intentional and I am happy to give credit! You know where to find me! <3

Natori Shuuichi absolutely could not call in sick. The production was already running behind schedule, something to do with zoning delays, one of the location scouts had mentioned it over coffee - no, taking time off...it was impossible.

Fortunately, he was not sick - merely without crucial components of his wardrobe: trousers, necktie, a single sock. He had recovered most of them by the time he stumbled blearily into the kitchen; only the tie remained missing in action.

Matoba Seiji was already seated at the dining table, having arisen several hours earlier, his brain irrevocably programmed to wake before dawn after a lifetime spent in a fastidious brand of self-imposed discipline. The very thought made Natori shudder.

“You should call in sick today,” Matoba said, before taking a protracted sip of his tea.

“Good morning to you too,” said Natori. “Do I look sick?” This was a rhetorical question; Natori looked handsome and dashing at all times. He had been assured of this on many occasions, and by many people. To say otherwise had to be statistically incorrect.

“No. Call in anyway.” Matoba tilted his head to indicate a second teacup sitting across the table, steam drifting lazily from its rim. The sliding glass door that opened onto the balcony of Natori’s apartment was set ajar, and a warm draft floated in, rattling the wind chimes Seiji had brought from Kumamoto.

“Can’t. We’re filming all day, m’fraid.”

Natori located the elusive necktie: there it was, slung over the arm of a standing lamp.  _How did that get there?_   He scanned the recesses of his memory. It was Matoba who’d untied it for him, last night, after spending the better part of an hour running his index finger along Natori’s inner thigh under the restaurant tablecloth - they had cut their meal short and excused themselves from dinner early. Natori could no longer recall who they’d even been dining with; the two-person afterparty had been pleasant enough that the rest of the evening’s activities paled in comparison. At any rate, the lamp and the tie were proving very difficult to untangle and it was clearly someone else’s fault.

“Remind me, what is it this week?”

“It’s supposed to be a financial thriller.” Natori scrambled into his shoes. “So at least I’ll get to do something interesting for once.”

Matoba drummed his fingernails softly against the hardwood table. “Think of all the interesting things you could be doing  _to me_  if you called in sick today,” he said coolly, with all the artistry of someone who has rehearsed this phrase and adjacent ones, potentially in front of a bathroom mirror - though to suggest such a thing would doubtless be an intolerable insult.

Natori opened his mouth and closed it again. The recovered necktie hung limp in his hand; try as he might, he couldn’t seem to remember what it was for. “What sorts of things?”

Matoba did not look up from the newspaper Natori was certain he wasn’t actually reading. “You’ll have to stick around to find out.”

Natori pondered the strip of polka-dotted fabric in his hand. “You don’t call in sick to a major motion picture. That’s...not really a thing people do.”

“What do they do, then?” Matoba folded the newspaper carefully. “Actors, when they’re feeling indisposed.”

_They show up, sample some choice substances known to elevate the heart rate, and keep shooting._

Matoba had his hair pulled up, as he often did in the mornings, into a messy ponytail that began high on his head and folded once or twice into an even messier bun, to prevent the dark ends from trailing. There was something graceful about it. There was often grace in the sloppiness, where Matoba was concerned - his carelessness so scarce, he wore it unknowingly as a statement piece. Natori stood on the threshold, one hand gripping the doorknob, and watched the back of Seiji’s neck, pale and smooth, watched the slight curve of the upper spine as he inclined his head.

Matoba heaved an audible sigh, which for him was a gesture of excessive drama. “Your car is waiting, surely.”

Outside, the chimes skittered in the breeze.

 

 

x

 

 

Natori made it to work, albeit without the necktie, but he didn’t manage to stay for long. The morning proved dull and arduous, and by the early afternoon his mind was elsewhere entirely - migrated back to his apartment, in fact.

Both the demands of the film industry and the demands of defending humanity against yokai...such things did not weigh  _heavily_   upon the relationship, per se, but they could be tedious and frustrating to navigate, from time to time. During the longer stretches of absence, when work kept them apart, Natori had fallen into the habit of having flowers sent: peonies, hydrangeas. Matoba liked the asterids best. At first, Natori had done it nearly out of spite - they had not even been  _serious_  yet, when the first bouquet of roses was delivered to the doorstep of the central clan residence. Roses were neither classy nor subtle, and Matoba hated them, and refused to throw them away until the petals dried and cracked and crumbled into powder. The note that accompanied them, anonymous and signed with a scrawling heart, had caused quite the stir among the exorcist community, stuffy and insular as it was.  _An extraordinarily tacky move,_  Matoba had called it when he saw Natori next, in between sloppy kisses, the hot slide of his mouth on Natori's.

He sent chrysanthemums now.

Red ones.

They ended up having to redo so many takes before noon that the director made a mission of personally inquiring after Natori’s health.

“Everything alright, Shuuichi?” Matsuo-san only ever used his first name, something Natori supposed he thought made him personable and friendly. In reality, it just made him tactless, but Natori wasn’t going to be the bearer of bad news. “You’re not yourself today.”

“Feeling a bit under the weather, now that you mention it,” he answered brightly. “Say, what are the odds I might take the rest of the day off?”

Matsuo-san looked appalled. “You know the kinds of limitations we’re working with,” he said, alarm pitching his voice a full octave higher than it should be. “How poorly are you feeling, exactly? Be honest.”

“Not terrible. I’m fine.”

The director grinned, and patted Natori on the back a good deal harder than he preferred. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Have Daisuke get you another coffee and some aspirin. And don’t ask me again, unless you’re coughing up blood.”

Even one of the makeup artists - Natori’s favorite, an unflappable woman who’d been in the business nearly two decades and had a heartwarming penchant for showing him photographs of her kids’ baseball tournaments - remarked on his lackluster performance, when they convened for touch-ups in between takes.

“Distracted today, Natori-san?”

Hiyori’s multi-tiered contouring case sprang open with a metallic pop, brushes rattling lightly in their plastic holders.

“Mm.” Natori was thinking about Matoba Seiji’s eyelashes. He told Hiyori as much. She rolled her eyes and continued smearing a flesh-colored power onto Natori’s brow.

“He’s antsy because he has to leave soon,” he explained. Matoba commuted most weeks between the seat of the clan ( _sorcerer headquarters_ , Hiyori called it) and wherever Natori happened to be working at the time, within reason. He had met Hiyori incidentally some months ago, and admitted straightaway to running an exorcist faction when she’d asked him what he did for a living. Hiyori hadn’t so much as batted an eye. She had, as she put it, “been around the block” a couple times. Natori didn’t know what she meant by this, and Matoba didn’t care to.

“I see.” Hiyori worked in quick, neat strokes, blending the color down along his cheekbones.

“I texted him this morning after I left, to ask what he’s doing,” Natori continued, “but he hasn’t responded.”

“How terrible,” said Hiyori, in a tone that made him doubt her sincerity.

“Yes.” Natori frowned into his coffee. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Stop moving."

Natori sighed. How he suffered.

Not five minutes later his phone buzzed, graced at long last with a reply. Natori nearly tripped over himself trying to fish the thing out of his pocket.

**It’s boring here.**

Natori understood. He typed out a response.

**without me u mean ;^D**

Matoba’s reply was swift and definite.

**I have things to attend to. Come home or I’m going back to Kumamoto.**

Natori snapped his phone shut so loudly that a production assistant loitering nearby actually jumped in surprise. He turned to Hiyori and asked, “How fast and how convincingly can you make me look like I’m coughing up blood?”

Another rhetorical question, of course; Hiyori was a professional.

 

 

x

 

 

Matoba’s boredom was a summoning circle in its own right: perilous on a bad day and fickle on a good one. Something you didn’t want to stumble into unawares, if you knew what was good for you. For this reason, Natori approached the apartment with caution.

When he arrived home, Matoba was seated on the living room floor with his feet tucked under him, pouring over what appeared to be a vellum scroll spread across the coffee table. He pretended not to notice Natori coming in the door, but Natori caught the shift in his posture and knew anticipation for what it was.

“Reading material?” He asked, alighting on the sofa to peek over Seiji’s shoulder.

“A retrospective study of banishment practices used during the final years of the Fujiwara regency.” Matoba jerked his chin in the direction of the pile of books beside him. “Fascinating, actually. According to this account, practitioners sometimes made false appeals to deities, purposely mispronouncing a syllable or leaving a word out - just enough to convince a spirit that a bigger, hungrier fish was on the way, so to speak."

Natori slid off the couch and draped himself over Seiji’s back, fingers playing with the waistband of his sweatpants. "Spiritual good cop/bad cop?"

“It didn’t work, of course,” Matoba went on. “Completely ineffective, although the principle of the thing wasn’t misguided. Current scholarship holds that the issue was with the tactic itself: it blurred the line between incantation and invocation. A risky move, to say the least--” Matoba broke off, staring at the corner of Natori’s mouth. “Have you been coughing up blood?”

“Do you like it? It’s my new look. All the rage in Roppongi.”

Matoba wrinkled his nose to let Natori know  _exactly_   how he felt about Roppongi existing.

"Well, anyway. The decades afterward saw significant improvements in the  _infrastructure_   of the chants, though much seems to have been lost as far as inventiveness is concerned. There is something to be learned by studying the shortcomings of past exorcisms, I think. Our generation would do well to consider varying our approach, at least in straightforward possession cases."

Natori nipped lightly at him, pressed his nose into Seiji’s neck, letting a hand wander beneath the fabric of his shirt. “I can’t believe you’re playing hard-to-get after I coughed up blood for you,” he said, words muffled as his lips moved against Seiji’s skin.

“Hiyori-san needs a raise.”

Natori tugged the collar of Matoba’s shirt down and dug his teeth gently into yesterday’s bruises, enjoying Seiji’s satisfied hiss. “Mm, she does.”

They kissed languidly, shedding garments here and there, until Natori sensed Matoba losing patience. He was losing patience himself.

“Hang on,” he said, and Seiji’s legs snapped around his waist as he was lifted off the ground and carried out of the room, arms tight around Natori’s neck. Natori rolled him down onto the mattress and rummaged briefly in a bedside drawer. By the time he managed to locate the lube, Matoba had already removed the rest of his clothes, and set to work on helping Natori out of his trousers.

"Whoa, hey there--okay."

Natori, in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt, felt a sudden heat and pressure at his groin; he looked down to find Matoba kneeling on the bed before him, licking him through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs. He watched as Seiji mouthed at his erection, lips parted and tongue darting out to flick this way and that. It took the threat of Matoba's teeth to remind him that he still had a shirt to relieve himself of.

One discarded shirt and abandoned pair of underwear later, Natori sat upright on the bed and put a knee squarely in the center of Seiji's chest, to keep him still. If the weight bothered him...well, he didn't show it. Natori placed the tip of an index finger on Matoba’s forehead, right between the brows, then ran it slowly downwards, resting on the end of his nose, on his lips, his chin - Natori’s fingers came to a stop at the hollow of his throat, in the dip just below his Adam’s apple. His other hand was busy, slick fingers circling the entrance to Seiji's body.

"Let me do that."

"No." Natori was an expert in guidance, could make his voice soft and firm in the same breath. "You'll stay where you are. I'm better."

He pressed another finger in, and savored the hiss it drew from his lover.

“All those people you’re in charge of…” Natori curled his fingers inside, achingly precise. “The ones you move around like pawns...do you think they've guessed? That you follow orders so prettily in bed.”

"Shut up." Matoba looked away in what Natori took for embarrassment or lust, or a combination of the two - either suited Matoba just as well, as far as he was concerned, although the latter was preferred.

The hand that rested at Seiji's throat rose to cup his chin, turning his head so that eye contact was unavoidable.

"It's not part of the clan inductee orientation training," Matoba wheezed, "if that's what you're asking."

Natori realized he was putting almost all his weight on Seiji's chest, and moved his knee at the same moment he removed his fingers. It wouldn't do to have Matoba pass out from lack of oxygen: something which ran a real danger of happening if Natori wasn't attentive, given that Matoba's proclivities tended towards...the rougher end of several spectrums, and he could not be counted on to protest when Natori catered to those tastes a bit  _too_ enthusiastically.

Natori began coating his cock with lube. He could be quicker at this, but it was best to make Seiji wait and watch. He liked the feeling of Seiji’s gaze on him as he touched himself, slow and deliberate.

“What’s taking you so long?” Matoba’s voice was high and breathy.

“I want - ssh,” Natori poised above him now, tucked a lock of hair perfunctorily behind Seiji’s ear. “I want to watch me slide into you.”

Matoba made a sound that was either a snort or a sob. “Natori Shuuichi,  _fuck me already."_

“Hah. I like it when you get flustered enough to swear.”

“You motherfucking- son of a- reprehensible-” Matoba sounded like he was on the verge of giving up conventional syntax altogether.

“That’s more like it,” Natori said, and watched himself push all the way in. Matoba clapped a hand over his own mouth as Natori began to thrust in long, slow strokes. It was so good, the heat so blinding... Matoba shifted, threw a leg over his shoulder, allowing him deeper still, harder still, hooked an arm around the back of his neck to keep Natori close.

“Tight,” he murmured into Seiji’s shoulder. “You’re so tight.” There it was, that overwhelming feeling, akin to panic, that he was at some sort of precipice. Being inside someone felt so good  _so good so good, so hot and so immediate_...Natori let his eyes fall closed, willed himself to concentrate as bright pleasure thrummed through his body: lean arms pulled him close, hips rose to meet his every thrust.

Matoba groaned through his fingers, and Natori reached over to pry his hand from his mouth. “I want to hear you,” he said, sucking at Seiji’s collarbone.

“I hate you.”

Natori tried and failed to suppress a laugh. “Nevermind then,” he said, and kissed Seiji with bruising force.

Matoba was not a vocal lover, not if he could help it: it was unresponsiveness by choice, by intent, which made his every gasp and shiver all the more delightful. Each moan  _held value_ , when Natori knew it had to be coaxed out of him, teased from his grip, stolen.

Matoba sucked on Natori’s tongue until Natori rolled his hips, pressing deeper, eliciting a small cry. Another roll of his hips and Seiji bit down on his tongue with such force it could only have been an involuntary motion.

“Watch your teeth,” Natori panted into his mouth.

“I’ll think about watching my teeth when you think about fucking me for real.”

The remark came out in a low growl, and Natori was emboldened by it. He wrapped his arms tightly around Matoba’s waist and sat back, dragging Matoba into his lap. Matoba sank down astride Natori’s thighs with a soft moan, his heels digging into the small of Natori’s back.

Natori took the opportunity to increase his pace, pelvis jerking of its own accord. He reached between them, and found Matoba slick and hard when he closed his hand. The sigh he drew from Seiji as he touched him...to feel someone so unyielding go pliant against him at even the slightest touch...it was too much, it was not enough, it was exactly what Natori wanted and needed and thought about in his most private moments. It wasn't long before Seiji, breathing patterns erratic and stammering nonsensically, finished under his hand. When Natori came, he came with his face buried in Matoba’s shoulder, with Matoba’s fingers threaded through his hair. He came murmuring praises, and let his body collapse forward into the cradle of Seiji’s hips, knocking Matoba over backwards onto the bed.

_I really ought to cough up blood more often._

What did it take to contract tuberculosis in the 21st century? Natori considered the question as Seiji, flushed and barely cognizant, traced the path the gecko yokai trekked across his shoulder blade. 

"Go away," he heard Matoba whisper, and knew instantly the address wasn't meant for him.

This was not the first time he'd overheard his lover speaking to the spectre, attempting to engage it in...what, conversation? It had taken some getting used to. Once, Natori had awoken to the sound of Matoba muttering into the back of his neck as they lay together in the minutes before dawn.  _Do you like him?_   Matoba had asked.  _I like him more_. His voice had been glacial, impersonal, as if he was merely imparting a fact: the weather, or the time of day.  _If it comes down to the two of us, I'll win. He will choose me over you, every time_. It had creeped Natori out so badly that he visibly shuddered, alerting Seiji to his state of consciousness and making him blush with embarrassment at having been caught. The lizard had yet to respond to these ministrations, but that didn't deter his lover from trying to provoke it.

"It can't hear you," Natori told him again, pressing a kiss to Seiji's temple.

"There's no way to be sure. It's not falsifiable."

“You’re cute,” Natori told him, because Seiji needed to hear some hard truths from time to time.

At that, Matoba turned his head and bit him hard on the earlobe, and he jerked back reflexively, pulling out. Natori tried to roll over onto his back, but Matoba’s legs were seemingly locked around his waist, and in the end he simply ended up pulling Seiji over with him.

They lay there for some time. Natori hummed contentedly, and watched the shadows cast by the ginko trees on the boulevard play tag with the gaps of light on the ceiling. Things felt so far away now, in these bright moments. He would have a new set of bruises, he mused delightedly. Not to worry. Hiyori would find something to cover them up. She always did. Seiji, on the other hand - what would he do? Natori had made sure to leave a mark high on Matoba’s throat the previous night, a souvenir from the big city to carry back to the countryside. Would he lie, make up stories, make excuses, deflect? Or would he wear the bruise with pride, counting on his subordinates’ fear to override their curiosity? Did Seiji even  _own_  a turtleneck? Natori’s stomach did gleeful somersaults at the possibilities.

He craned his neck to glance at Matoba. Seiji was lying face-down on Natori’s chest, his head buried in the shallow dip between Natori’s pectorals, and he did not look as though he planned on moving any time soon.

“I lost my train of thought,” said Matoba shakily. “Where were we? Before, I mean.”

“I believe you were telling me about Heian-era banishing incantations. Or  _invocations_. Shall we begin where we left off, or--- hey!” Natori started, a chuckle dying in his throat when he felt Seiji press his tongue to Natori’s right nipple.

“Oi! I’m not a popsicle, you know.”

Seiji said nothing, only bent his head to lick at the opposite nipple, teeth grazing tender skin. Natori found himself growing hard once more, and began to grind lightly against the curve of Seiji’s ass. When he pushed in again, Seiji’s breath hitched - the sound of it almost sent Natori over the edge. His mind stretched and grappled for a distraction, and seized upon welcome ways to occupy himself, planting kisses on Matoba’s chin and clavicle and the spot just below his ear, running his thumb underneath the cloth of the eyepatch Matoba had forgotten to shed in his haste.

Seiji loathed sentimentality, felt nothing short of disdain for showy displays of affection in bed - so Natori lavished it upon him, just to see him squirm. But when Natori leaned in to kiss his forehead, it seemed the final straw was had: Matoba sat up, clear out of range.

Natori smiled. No matter. Instead, he busied himself with what he could reach, rubbed circles into Seiji’s hipbones with steady, calloused palms. Above him, Matoba rolled his hips, riding him with intent now.

Natori sat halfway up, propped himself on one elbow to watch precome gather at the head of Matoba’s cock. He held Seiji’s gaze as he pressed a fingertip innocently to the slit, and reveled in the way Seiji’s eyelid fluttered at the sensation. He canted his hips at a higher angle, and Seiji groaned in response, shoulders dropping and fingers curling on Natori’s stomach, nails digging into smooth flesh.

“I want you to come like this,” Natori said between ragged breaths. “Can you do that for me?”

Matoba nodded dazedly, a feverish look in his eye. “Anything.”

Natori was struck dumb, sometimes, by how much of himself Matoba was willing to offer, under the right circumstances. That someone so publicly uncompromising would let Natori -  _Natori,_  who was  _no one,_  not really, not in the world that  _counted_  - slip between parted thighs and do whatever he pleased....it was alien and familiar and novel and gorgeous.

But he did not find his current state conducive to articulating such thoughts, and said only, "Good, that's right, I know you can." 

Natori gripped Seiji in earnest now, one hand on his hipbone and the other at his waist, using his own strength to help lift Matoba off his cock, only to have him sink back down again mere seconds later. The pace was maddening, and it was only a matter of time before Natori felt Seiji seize up in his arms, heard the broken moan that signaled his climax. Natori’s mouth found Matoba’s, and then he was coming too.

“We should get married,” mumbled Seiji a while later, into the crook of Natori’s jaw.

Natori regarded him, sideways: his hair a sweaty tangle, his lips pink and swollen where Natori had bitten them almost bloody. He raised a hand, twirled strands of inky hair between middle and forefinger, amusement plain in his voice when he said, “I see right through you. You’re only suggesting that because I just fucked you stupid.”

Matoba nodded wordlessly, and Natori couldn’t contain his laughter.

Outside, the wind chimes rang.

On the windowsill, the chrysanthemums lost another petal.

Red.

**Author's Note:**

> i legit cannot tell if this is gross, or if i'm just a prude ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
